Bahmani never gave up on dream

Steve Horrell • shorrell@edwpub.net

Published
11:08 am CDT, Friday, June 8, 2018

EDITOR'S NOTE – This is the second of a two-part story on Mohammad Bahmani's quest to run the Boston Marathon.

To say that qualifying for Boston was difficult for Bahmani is to dramatically understate the situation. At one point he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and twice he underwent lengthy surgeries to remove a tumor that had wrapped itself around muscles in his arm.

About six months ago he discovered that three vertebrae in his neck had scrunched together.

Turning his neck to the side often meant that he wouldn't be able to turn it back. "It got to the point where I couldn't function,' he says. "I couldn't drive or all of the sudden my hand would fall asleep."

It was about two years ago that Mohammad had the good luck to run into Gil Restrepo at the Esic YMCA. Years before, the two had played pickup soccer on Sunday afternoons at the Bluff Road complex at SIUE. When Restrepo learned of his travails and his desire to qualify for Boston, he urged him to call Jorge Garcia. Garcia has run a marathon in every state in the U.S. and hopes to one day accomplish his goal of running a marathon on every continent. He has also run Boston three times.

Perhaps more important, Garcia has devoted himself to helping others push past their obstacles and reach their running goals.

Very quickly into that first phone call, Garcia learned of Mohammad's early years growing up in Iran, of his medical setbacks and his determination now to make it to Boston.

"However, what really touched my heart was his passion for his family, especially his mother, whom he had been away from since his teenage years," Garcia said.

The two bonded quickly. Nearly 38 years ago Garcia's own mother was murdered by his father in in an apartment where the family was living in Newark, N.J. Garcia, who was 7 years old at the time, said he experienced the horror of returning home from school that day to find his mother lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

He and his brother bounced from foster home to foster home. Today he credits others, including the U.S. Marines, for helping him get where he is today. His mother's death, he says, has given purpose to his running. Today he carries a photo of Alicia Margarita Castenada with him in every marathon, and when he crosses the finish line he makes the sign of the cross, blows a kiss skyward and shows the photo to the cameras.

...

Mohammad ran the St. Patrick's "so hard I couldn't believe myself." "The excitement it gave me when I was standing at the starting line, and the excitement it gave me when I finished was just overwhelming," he said. "It just resonated with me that maybe I can start running."

A few races later, he registered for the 2016 Go! St. Louis. When he made that phone call to Garcia, he had already taken aim at Boston.

Both men realized the challenge. It would have been a challenge even for someone who had not endured what he had endured. And at 59, he was no spring chicken.

Mohammad Bahmani began running the streets of Edwardsville, five or six miles a day, and he set aside Sunday for his runs of 16 to 18 miles.

Amy got up with him at 3 am to make coffee and see him out the door.

He finished Go! St. Louis in a respectable 4 hours and 32 minutes. But he still needed to shave more than 30 minutes off to qualify for Boston. Garcia offered to tweak his training schedule and give it more structure. They began meeting at a local track for runs. They also went out together to run "repeats" up Whiteside Road, a hill favored by local runners and bikers that begins at Bluff Road and winds steeply up to the main campus. It's steep enough that kamikaze cyclists who descend it at 26 mph find themselves crawling back up the ascent at 6 mph.

Garcia, who lives in Glen Carbon, urged Mohammad to enter the Fox Valley Marathon, in St. Charles, Ill. He did, and during the run he realized that by mile 23, his time would qualify him for Boston. Afterward, his cell phone was ablaze with calls. He texted Garcia with the news and received a phone call back. "Mohammad, you put tears in my eyes," Bahmani recalls him saying. He called his mother and the two began crying as well.

"Mom, I made it to the Boston Marathon."

"I had no doubt you would make it," she said.

Few other words were spoken, he recalls.

"We couldn't stop crying,' he says.

...

In the 122 year-history of the Boston Marathon, it's doubtful that conditions were ever worse than they were on April 16, 2018. Some years have brought snow squalls and others scorching heat, but this year brought freezing rain and wind gusts that hit runners at 35-40 mph.

Hundreds of runners dropped out and found themselves at area hospitals.

Mohammad Bahmani was not one of them.

...

A couple of miles in, Bahmani lost the feeling in his hands and decided to ditch his rain-soaked cotton gloves. A short time later, his leaky jacket became so heavy that he ditched that as well. The Boston Marathon regularly attracts a half million spectators who line the streets on both sides to cheer the runners on. This year one of them ran out from the crowd and tried to put a pair of waterproof gloves on Bahmani's hands, which were so frozen that it took several minutes to get them pulled on.

An older lady offered him fresh socks.

"What was amazing was the dedication and kindness of the people of Boston. They were coming out in waves and in every little town they were standing outside cheering," he said.

But his dream almost came to a premature end. At the 19-mile mark, his legs cramped. At a medical tent, they advised him to drop out; if he cramped up again, they said, the nearest medical tent would be 5 miles way.

"I said, 'No, you don't understand. I am going if I have to crawl on my hands and knees."

Still, when the finish line came into view, he sprinted to the end.

In an email response about what it took for Bahmanni to overcome his health obstacles and finish the Boston Marathon, Garcia was effusive: "Family, determination, hard work, heart, willingness to never give up, staying focused, being a good person, willingness to pay it forward, our running community, lots of encouragement, Jen Schaller at RunWell providing a home for runners to meet, and his friendly nature."

Bahmani says he learned later that he had come close to contracting hypothermia. But looking back on the experience, the important thing was that he finished the Boston Marathon.

"It was the most enjoyable, miserable run that I have ever done. I enjoyed every moment of it."